Romania`s electricity exchange OPCOM will host its first auction for EU allowances (EUAs) on 14 December, the bourse said on Wednesday (8th December). OPCOM will auction 325,000 EUAs on behalf of local emissions broker Consus.
The auction will come just weeks after the European emissions market was spooked by the theft of 1.6m EUAs from Romania`s carbon registry.
Consus expects the auction to clear close BlueNext`s quoted spot price at the time, brokerage director Lavinia Stoica told ICIS Heren.
Stoica added that she did not think potential auction participants would be put off by the EUA theft.
Even if the market was not jittery about allowances traded out of Romania, market participation could be limited. To date, OPCOM has only four companies listed as carbon market members: Consus, Swiss and Italian utilities Alpiq and Edison and local emissions broker ISRA-MART.
But Stoica believes more companies will sign up to trade emissions over the next week, especially given the quick registration process. Some counterparties had already shown interest, she added.
A source at OPCOM said that no new companies had registered recently.
Consus is auctioning the EUAs on behalf of one of its clients, but declined to give further details. The bourse launched its emissions platform this summer with Consus as its first member (see EDCM 16 July 2010).
OPCOM has more than 100 listed members that trade Day-ahead electricity contracts.
(THE ICIS HEREN REPORTS - EDCM 5.348 / 08 December 2010)
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